Orange Blossom

What a roller coaster ride this tea has been! Rishi Orange Blossom sounded so exciting to me—I imagined something like a high-quality (Rishi) jasmine green tea, but with the jasmine petals switched out for orange blossoms. How could I, a major white floral maven, resist?

Upon opening the packet, I was shocked to see that the bulk of the dried material was lemongrass, not tea! The scent also smelled like orange oil (not orange blossom) with a hint of jasmine in the background. At this point, I was quite pessimistic.

The brew proved me wrong, however! I was expecting this blend to be completely overwhelmed by the abundant lemon grass. Instead, the golden liquor tasted very similar to a jasmine-scented green tea with a touch of lemon myrtle!

It’s a very pleasant blend, but this is not really an orange blossom tea, in my opinion. It’s more like a perfume tea, with a harmonious mingling of several essences. The green tea base is very much in the background, but it carries the floral scents well. Thank goodness lemongrass does not predominate!

second infusion: perhaps predictably, a reinfusion produced more of a lemongrass taste—almost a tisane!

third infusion: I did not taste this but transferred it to the refrigerator to drink iced. The liquor is still quite bright and strongly redolent of lemongrass…

(Blazing New Rating #35)

I’m normally not a huge fan of green tea, but this is one of the few teas we have at work so I thought I’d give it a try this morning. To my surprise, it’s pretty good. I only steeped the tea for about 2 minutes and I found that was the perfect amount. It’s slightly sweet and orangy (I know that’s not a word but bear with me) with a floral aftertaste and no bitterness! This isn’t my favorite tea but it’s the best available at my work!

I generally love floral, perfumey teas (and for that matter, foods), so it’s natural that I like this tea.

I do wish it was more of a true orange blossom, instead of being mostly overwhelmed by a lemongrass flavor. But it is still very good, and a nice afternoon tea since it’s a bit lower in caffeine. In fact, I wish I hadn’t brewed a cup this morning. In the future, I think I’ll save this tea for afternoons after stressful mornings.

This is an example of how to get the most flavor out of a loose leaf tea. It’s naturally sweet and packed with citrus (though it was more lemon than orange in my opinion). I could tell from the first sip this was a solid green tea.

I was thrown off by the tea smelling a lot like Pine Sol. Appearance of the tea also threw me. This appeared to be more of a light black tea than a green. The color scheme might have been from one of the ingredients, no clue which one though.

It’s in the average price range for Rishi at about $4/oz. If you can get past the aesthetics, this is a solid tea that would probably be best iced, unsweetened.

Full review here: http://theteablag.blogspot.com/2011/01/its-trap.html

Too light for my tastes.

I love Rishi but I really disliked this tea. The lemongrass was so unbelievably overpowering it tasted of a bad lemon sucker without any sweetness at all. I will not be steeping this again!

Lemon myrtle and lemongrass are yummy in this. I drank this iced, just wonderful. Versatile being good both hot and cold. It’s good for one extra brew. The second brew, the lemongrass stands out more, and I used boiling water and brewed it for 2 minutes the second go. I think I might like the second brew more the the first brew! I would buy this again.

It has a slight spiciness characteristic of a chai that I do not like. I think the flavors overpower the green tea too much.